Mark Wangerin thinks that might be the same coyote he’s photographed before in the West Seattle Golf Course/lower Camp Long area. This photo is from Thursday. And it leads off the latest list of sightings reported by WSB’ers – read on:

On the 19th, Christine saw one in Gatewood, at night:

I was out walking my dog … in the 6700 block of 38th when I spotted, in silhouette, what I thought was a lone coyote walking across Warsaw Street. It wasn’t running, but had that slower. lankier, “on the prowl” demeanor. It went into the alley between the homes on 38th and 37th in the 6700 block.

That same day, Jeff saw one on Puget Ridge, by day:

Smallish coyote in our backyard this morning. On 17th across from Duwamish Cohousing.

Wendy sent this report:

I live in the North Admiral District and was startled by a large coyote running down the middle of my street (Sunset Ave – 1300 block) early Tuesday [last week] afternoon. It appeared to be running at about 20 mph and as I have a small dog, this was very scary. My neighbor also saw it while walking her dog, a larger breed. She phoned me to give me warning after hearing my story.

(The preceding day) I ran into two other dog walkers near 45th and Seattle Ave.. One gentleman who has a small dog told me that he and his dog were actually CHARGED by a coyote on Tuesday, the day of my sighting. He had to grab up his dog and stomp and yell to get the coyote away from them. The second lady with a large dog had also been frightened by a coyote.

Please let people know how fast and fearless these animals are. They can run up to 40 mph and will devour anything they can get. Even tho’ they prey on small animals, they are very capable of taking down a large one.

Tanner reports a suspected sighting:

I was just getting some late-night coffee at 1:30 in the morning, and out my window on 37th and Kenyon I saw some sort of canine run up the street. I knew it wasn’t a dog of any kind. I was trying to decide whether it was some sort of wolf or fox. I was about to call animal control, but then I went online and found out there had been a number of coyote sightings in West Seattle even just in the last few days. I also looked at pictures of coyotes on wikipedia and figured it looked a lot like an adult coyote. And that was ultimately my conclusion.

After our last roundup two weekends ago, Ann sent word of two sightings in one day:

The first was around noon. I was driving down 36th toward Hanford and a coyote ran down 36th ahead of me and turned right on Hanford into some bushes/trees.

Later in the day around 3 pm, I looked out the window and saw a coyote (may have been the same one, couldn’t say) in my backyard. I live on 36th and my backyard backs up to a tree/bush covered hill/cliff over Admiral way. I scared the coyote off and it ran into the bushes.

We have seen eyes looking at us at night from the bushes and our dog sometimes gets really worked up so I think they are in our yard often. My husband and I suspect that there is at least some small faction of them that live on that hill overlooking Admiral between 36th and Admiral since we see them so frequently.

Also after our last roundup, Karen in Hansen View (near The Mount) said her neighborhood had been talking about these a few days earlier:

· Susan emailed that she encountered a coyote around 8 PM when she was out walking her dog near 36th & Brandon. The coyote came up Brandon from 37th. Susan wrote that “He (she?) did not want anything to do with us, which is great — skulked off down the street in a big rush. Might be a good time to remind people to get their cats in early, since it was only 8 and that seems early for coyotes to be out roaming around.”

· Victoria then wrote: I saw the coyote around 11ish am yesterday morning heading down the 5000 block ally btwn 37th and 38th. I was in my car and stopped to snap a picture b/c I was so surprised. The picture is not clear or I would send it to you. It just seemed to be searching for food.

· Tim then responded: I also saw the coyote around 7 crossing 37th and Hudson, heading west into the alley between 37th and 38th.Then saw it again on 37th while walking the dogs at 8. It clearly was hanging out in a small area for awhile.

Coyotes have been seen just about everywhere in West Seattle – we have mapped the sightings reported to us over the past five years (and will be adding these), and while there’s little chance each one represents a unique coyote not duplicated elsewhere on the map, it at least shows how far they range around here. It’s most important, experts say, to do everything you can to encourage them to keep their distance – that’s all explained by state experts here.

25 Comments

Wow they really have nice fur and are larger this year! They certainly are eating good! Wonder how many people are missing pets! Scary!

Every time you read the word “Dog” or “Coyote” just substitute the word canine. I saw a “canine” off-leash in Lincoln Park.That poor women got her face bit by a …..let’s just admit it, dogs kill people.Coyotes don’t kill people.Dogs attack children.Dogs are more of a threat than any wild animal could ever be because we have bred billions of dogs.I love dogs but this irrational fear of undomesticated skinny mutts (coyotes) forces me to point out that the animal most likely to attack your loved ones is sleeping at your feet.

So coyotes don’t kill people? Tell that to the parents of Taylor Mitchell, Canadian folk singer, killed by coyotes in a Nova Scotia park three years ago. Just this past summer there was a coyote at the Oregon coast (Nehalem Bay State Park) that bit a young child. Needless to say, all of these coyotes were disposed of…

Comment by Livin' in West Seattle since '91 — 11:10 pm October 27, 2012 #

TooMuch – cats take care of the rat population here in west seattle. And for anyone else who wants to rank on cats that owns a dog, I’d like to point out that dogs, while on leashes (most of the time) still pee and do their business on my rockery, garbage cans and anything else they choose that borders our properties.

Also, as someone pointed out on a previous thread, coyotes were not in this area before. Their arrival is fairly recent. There needs to be a humane solution to keep their numbers down so we can all live together instead of the petty back and forth comments here.

Coyotes control over population or rodents and rabbits that live at the golf course. I really think we need to know what the wildlife experts have to say about the coyotes in urban areas before we vilify them. Shouldn’t we know how many are actually here – don’t wild life agencies do counts and such? It seems to me an over reaction about these creature being scary and a danger to our community. I agree, roaming off leash domesticated dogs (accidental, escaped, strays…or even on leash sometimes) are more of a real threat — how many people have been charged, threatened, or had a pet injured in W Seattle by a domesticated dog (or had a cat killed by such)?

Myself like others hope the Coyotes are not killed but just hope that pet owners (cats in general) keep them inside so they’re safe.
We live in a area that the Coyotes have been seen and we have a neighbor that has a cat and doesn’t let her inside…I told them about the Coyotes sightings and they said “oh yes we’ve seen them in our backyard” and in the same breath said their cat doesn’t come inside. REALLY!!!! Now where’s that Acme anvil when needed?

After living in Port Angeles, along the Park boarder, the threat of coyotes here seems slight. We also had to worry about bears, cougars, racoons, skunks, possoms deer, elk….the list can go on and on. You learn to take in all food, secure your trash and watch your pets. You learn to live with them. The sound of a pack of coyotes howling in the woods behind your house is haunting yet thrilling. We did not feel threatened.

However, we are in West Seattle. We as humans have encroached on Many a wild animal’s territory over the years. Our way of living and disposing of trash has made it easy for them to obtain food.

Saw a coyote lope down Lander, and stop at edge of ravine/ greenbelt that runs down Fairmount Ave from Forest Ave down to Harbor Ave. It sat to scratch itself, and where it was scratching it was red and bloody looking on its side. Don’t know if it had scratched itself raw or was injured, I left for five minutes to check for numbers to call and when I came back out it was gone. Called Seattle Animal Shelter and Fish and Wildlife.

Coyote ran right in front of us across brandon street from the golf course back into the longfellow creek trail around 3:30 today. Had our two large dogs with us. The coyote wasn’t threatening in anyway towards us or the dogs.

We’ve lost two cats mysteriously, on different days, during the day. One just a few days ago, the other one three months ago. The most likely explanations, we figure, in order of likelihood, are coyote; cat hit by a car but someone removed the remains too quickly for us to find out; cat accidentally locked in someone’s garage/shed, for too long to survive it.

We only let them out in daylight, and though we used to keep noisy bells on our cats to prevent them from killing birds, we stopped doing that because we figured it made it impossible for the cats to hide from coyotes. (I saw a coyote in our yard a year ago.) The first cat probably had bells on, the second one didn’t.

We never found any sign (remains) of either cat. I wonder if coyotes have a habit of not leaving much evidence of a kill.

I finally saw my first coyote in West Seattle trotting down the street around 49th Ave SW and Raymond. At first I thought a German Shepherd mix had gotten out of its yard and was getting ready to pull over and try to catch it but when I got closer it was obviously a coyote; a very big coyote.